[Illustration: VALLEY OF THE RIVER BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND.] One of the sights of Brisbane is the Garden of the Acclimatisation Society--a body supported partly by private subscription and partly by Government endowment. In these Gardens are collected a vast number of trees and plants selected for their use and beauty, and the sub-tropical position of Brisbane allows the propagation of the vegetable products of almost every zone. The 'bush house' in these gardens, a huge structure consisting of a rough framework roofed with dried bushes, covers several acres, and is stocked with a most interesting collection of ferns, lycopods, orchids, dracænas, colans, begonias, &c. There is a public museum, which is well stocked, and its specimens of natural history are well arranged. The use of timber for buildings is very general in Brisbane. Pine is abundant on the coast of Queensland, and the easily worked timber is cheap. The climate is very mild, and their weatherboard walls are quite sufficient to keep out the very moderate cold experienced in winter; almost all the dwelling-houses, and many of the stores in the suburbs, are therefore wooden buildings. The dwelling-houses also are nearly all detached, standing each one in an allotment of its own, so that the residential part of the town straggles over an immense area, stretching out in fragmentary streets for miles from the main city. There are hundreds of neat cottages and trim villas scattered over the low hills and valleys, on the river bank, or nestling under the range of hills which lie to the west of the town. It should be remembered, however, that in the climate of Brisbane the 'verandah is the best room in the house,' and people live as much as possible in the open air; the family group gathers on the verandah in the evening instead of, as in a colder climate, congregating indoors.